By Johnstun, Kase

Summary
Summary: CrossTalk, The Journal of Defense Software Engineering, is an approved U.S. Department of Defense journal. CrossTalk's mission is to encourage the engineering development of software in order to improve the reliability, sustainability, and responsiveness of our warfighting capability and to inform and educate readers on up-to-date policy decisions and new software engineering technologies.

Description
Description: This article walks the reader through the basic process and considerations needed to determine the project scope for new development, including maintenance builds; while not recommended, guesstimating auditable and more realistic numbers before requirements have been fully fleshed out is possible using the practices outlined in this article; here is an overview of the models in the COCOMO suite, and how they can be used together to support larger software system estimation needs; this article provides insight into the System Evaluation and Estimation of Resources - Software Estimating Model's inner workings and basis of estimation, which are built upon a mix of mathematics and statistics; this author uses a series of Personal Software Process courses to contend that the line-of-code measure is a vague, ambiguous, and unsuitable parameter for sizing software projects; Don O'Neill writes about the absence of innovation as one of the minimum software focus areas in the ""Policy Note to Readers"" memo featured in January 2005 CrossTalk; Norman Hines expresses his concern that open source software will restrict the amount of money software developers can charge for proprietary software.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents: Cost Estimation: Estimating and Managing Project Scope for New Development; by William Roetzheim. This article walks the reader through the basic process and considerations needed to determine the project scope for new development, including maintenance builds -- Software Cost Estimating Methods for Large Projects; by Capers Jones. Larger projects have a greater need for commercial software estimating tools, which often outperform human estimates in terms of accuracy, and always in terms of speed and cost effectiveness -- Creating Requirements-Based Estimates Before Requirements Are Complete; by Carol A. Dekkers. While not recommended, guesstimating auditable and more realistic numbers before requirements have been fully fleshed out is possible using the practices outlined in this article -- A Method for Improving Developers' Software Size Estimates; by Lawrence H. Putnam, Douglas T. Putnam, and Donald M. Beckett. These authors outline a model-based process for mapping requirements to intermediate units to elementary units of work, using the resulting output for estimating -- Software Engineering Technology: COCOMO Suite Methodology and Evolution; by Dr. Barry Boehm, Ricardo Valerdi, Jo Ann Lane, and A. Winsor Brown. Here is an overview of the models in the COCOMO suite, and how they can be used together to support larger software system estimation needs -- Inside SEER-SEM; by Lee Fischman, Karen McRitchie, and Daniel D. Galorath. This article provides insight into the System Evaluation and Estimation of Resources--Software Estimating Model's inner workings and basis of estimation, which are built upon a mix of mathematics and statistics -- Open Forum: The Statistically Unreliable Nature of Lines of Code; by Joe Schofield. This author uses a series of Personal Software Process courses to contend that the line-of-code measure is a vague, ambiguous, and unsuitable parameter for sizing software projects -- On-Line Only Feature: Letters to the Editor: Absence of Innovation. Don O'Neill writes about the absence of innovation as one of the minimum software focus areas in the ""Policy Note to Readers"" memo featured in January 2005 CrossTalk -- Open Source Software. Norman Hines expresses his concern that open source software will restrict the amount of money software developers can charge for proprietary software.